Natural dog health care, looking after your dog naturally

Feeding

After a puppy has been weaned, he can begin to learn how to handle and digest different types of new dog foods. During the next 12 to 18 months of his life, he will continue to learn how to cope with the variety of new dog foods he eats. For the first six to eight months of that period the puppy will be both growing and using nutrients and energy at an incredible rate. If a dog food contains ingredients to which a puppy is not used to or nutrients that are difficult to digest, he may be unable to obtain enough dog nutrition and energy to sustain his rapid growth. In such cases the puppies are usually stunted.

In addition,dog foods containing too many ingredients which the puppy has not yet learned to digest can cause another problem called “hurry diarrhea”. When a dog owner gets in too big a hurry to feed adult dog food to a puppy, excessive amounts of indigestible materials are usually introduced into the puppy’s digestive tract. These materials irritate the sensitive intestine of the inexperienced puppy and produce diarrhea.

Good dog nutrition is key to formulating a suitable diet for a puppy and is one of the most important steps in starting a dog’s life. The only source of nourishment a rapidly growing puppy receives comes exclusively from what his owner provides him. His health and growth will be a reflection of how well the owner is doing his job. If you provide your pet with poor dog food materials during this building period your puppy will be destined to poor health for the rest of it’s life.

A growing puppy needs twice as much energy and nutrients as an adult dog. Simply feeding him twice as much as an adult dog is not enough, however. The energy and nutrients must be in a form that is digestible by the puppy’s inexperienced and sensitive digestive tract. However, as the puppy grows older, the diet can include dog foods that are more and more difficult for a dog to digest. Continue to feed your growing puppy the same dog food that was used to wean him, but gradually add additional foods to train the puppy’s inexperienced digestive system. Just as the food fed to an adult is not suitable for a puppy, puppy food is not suitable for an adult dog.

By the time a puppy has reached maturity, his digestive system should be thoroughly trained to handle all of the foods it will be fed during his adult life. Generally, canned and soft-moist foods contain ingredients of higher digestibility than dry dog food. Canned dog foods are usually more suitable to feed to growing puppies than soft-moist dog foods. There are always exceptions, however, a few dry dog foods contain excellent dog nutrition which are easily digestible. are much better for feeding fast growing puppies than numerous canned dog foods containing poorly digestible nutrients.

John Mailer has written many articles about dogs and puppies and how to train them. His main business is as an internet marketer

After some research, I’ve found that Science Diet isn’t a good dog food. Since my vet recommended it, I’d thought it would be fine!

So, I want to switch my Papillon and Yorkie’s food to something healthier and with better ingredients.

Any suggestions? When I look at the ingredients and nutrition, what should I look for or avoid?

I know what you’re going through! We are trained to trust vets and breeders, and think they know best, but really… when it comes to nutrition, they don’t always know best.

When looking for dog food, you want something that has no corn in it. Most dogs have some form of allergy to corn. You want the most meat content you can afford. And you want meat or meat meal. No meat by-products.

Also, I would recommend researching raw diets. Even if you don’t plan on switching, it doesn’t hurt to look into it. I switched my dog to a raw diet about 2 months ago, and so far, I am loving the results.

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